


one fine day

by chimaekjin (symmetrophobic)



Series: hero's soup [2]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Gen, Superhero!AU, a short spinoff to surrender, because i thought about cute backstory for seungjin and got weak, i've been wanting to post this for like 10 years but here it is now, note!! this is completely gen platonic stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 02:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19898590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symmetrophobic/pseuds/chimaekjin
Summary: Eleven-year-old Hwang Hyunjin is nothing more than one of the hundreds locked away from society, for a crime committed against them before they were even born.And Kim Seungmin is his breath of fresh air.





	one fine day

**Author's Note:**

> remember that seungjin backstory i mentioned in the end notes of surrender like 10 years ago
> 
> well here it is!! the summary sounds unnecessarily dramatic in hindsight but im rly wiped out right now and im surprised i managed to produce anything at all
> 
> please enjoy the fic guys!! thank you big hearts
> 
> p.s. surrender is a recommended reading for this fic but not compulsory if ur just here for That Good Seungjin Stuff yeah!!!

There’s a sparse group of kids scattered around the bare function room. Some of them are helping to bring out chairs and tables, some are huddled in cliques whispering among themselves, and some are sorting through a bunch of worn exercise books stacked up on the table in front of the room.

Hwang Hyunjin doesn’t like Math class in the Institution. He doesn’t understand why, but once or twice every week, people apart from the wardens and orderlies will come to the Institution, set up this room, and teach them about stuff. Usually it’s fractions (the Math with the fake pizzas), or the life cycles of insects, or writing.

The orderlies always remind them to be grateful, because they’re doing this for free, but unlike a lot of kids here, Hyunjin had come in at an age when he remembered what school outside had been like, and decided that free or not, it wasn’t worth understanding why people would cut up a pizza into so many slices and only take one.

He knows they’re not allowed to go to school outside though, like the other kids, because they’re weird. Because they were born with something a little wrong in them that made them explode things or teleport or fly, something that gave them the white Mark on their body, and that meant they couldn’t go to school or go back home. Personally, Hyunjin doesn’t see this as much of a loss. School and home in general just were never his style. He does miss the food, though.

He picks up his and Yeji’s books at the front, hoping there’ll be chocolate bread and hot Ovaltine for them at the end of the lesson again, then hurries back, getting a nice table next to the window. He only remembers, a beat later, that his cousin’s not coming for lessons today, because she’s in timeout for fighting with a boy who’d pulled her pigtail during breakfast. Hyunjin savours the memory of that boy’s expression when Yeji socked him in the face after that. He would’ve hit him too, if he dared to use his fists.

He deflates, frowning into his book. Chaeyeon’s not here either, she and Lia just got transferred into another class for the smarter kids, and he’s never gotten along with any of the other Millennials well enough to join them for lessons.

Footsteps approach, and Hyunjin looks up, brightening when he sees a familiar face. “Hyung! Hyung, can we do writing again today?”

The older boy laughs as he gets to the table, setting a heavy assessment book with a fake sliced pizza on the cover down on the table. There are lots of people who teach them here, some come and some disappear, and Hyunjin doesn’t remember all their names. Most of them are old, like, _adult_ old, but some are teenagers, going to high school, and secretly, they’re everything Hyunjin aspires to be when he grows up.

Kim Woojin smiles as he flips open the assessment book, taking a little whiteboard out of his bag. “We’re continuing fractions today. Let’s wait till the rest get here, okay?”

Hyunjin sighs, mood plummeting. Not only are they slicing the pizzas in Math, now, they’re adding them up, flipping them around, dividing them into even smaller pizzas – it’s horrible.

Woojin gestures towards the door, then, speaking quietly. “C’mon, Minnie, it’s right over here.”

Hyunjin stiffens up as a boy his age approaches them cautiously. He’s thin, with round cheeks, a worried frown and thick prescription glasses. Hyunjin hasn’t seen a kid his age from the outside world in ages.

“This is my brother, Kim Seungmin, he’s your age,” Woojin introduces carefully, patting the boy’s narrow shoulders. “He’ll be my teacher’s assistant for today. Minnie, this is Hwang Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin remains quiet, sitting silently next to the new boy as Woojin heads off for a moment to round up the rest of the kids. He picks at the corner of his exercise book, staring blankly at a sum he’d been told to do while waiting.

“I can help you with that.”

He looks up, staring warily at the other boy. He knows they’re the same age, but the boy seems smaller, dwarfed in a shirt that’s too big for him, with his unruly hair and blocky glasses.

“You can’t add it like that. The number at the bottom is different,” the boy – Seungmin, continues, pointing at the chicken-scratch scribble on the paper.

“I don’t understand,” Hyunjin admits, pushing the book away. “I’m bad at Math.”

“We can do it together,” Seungmin leans over, taking the pencil. “My brother says it’s always better to do things together.”

Hyunjin stares, watching the complex rows of numbers and symbols that Seungmin scribbles down, all the while explaining carefully why he does it the way he does. He feels embarrassed that they’re the same age, but Seungmin’s so much smarter than him. He probably knows how to do fractions without pizzas.

“…and then you get this answer,” the other boy finishes, carefully underlining a fraction, before looking up. “Do you get it?”

“Maybe,” Hyunjin admits. He had caught bits and pieces of it. “I don’t get it when it’s not in pizzas.”

Seungmin frowns at the paper for a second. Then slowly, with the same deliberation used just now, he draws two pizzas, slicing and shading them neatly according to the fraction in the sum. Then he points to a slice with his pencil. “So here’s how it goes. The-…”

Another boy scrambles up to the table at this point, armed with his own exercise book, probably chased over by Woojin. He hesitates only for a second, before plopping next to Seungmin. “Who are you?” he asks, leaning in, and Seungmin flinches away, towards Hyunjin. The boy laughs, reaching over to pull Seungmin’s glasses off. “These make you look funny.”

Then Hyunjin leans over. He knows he can’t use his fists, but it’s led to the realisation that a lot of other body parts can make a weapon.

“Give them _back_ , Donghyuck,” he snaps, elbowing the other boy in the face, before snatching the glasses back. “They’re not yours.”

Donghyuck’s in a bad mood, probably because of the scolding he’d gotten this morning from the orderlies. He grabs Hyunjin’s arm, tugging him violently across the space. That’s his first mistake.

The other boy might be stockier, but Hyunjin’d hit his growth spurt early, and just a couple of centimetres over someone matter a lot when everyone’s the same age. He twists his arm out of Donghyuck’s grasp and shoves him backwards.

That’s when the other boy leaps forward, feet lifting off the floor for a second longer than they should, as he shoves Seungmin out of the way to get at Hyunjin. That’s his second mistake.

In a split second, Woojin is there, physically pushing the two of them apart, Seungmin scuttling behind him for shelter. Both of them get a fierce scolding from the orderlies, right there in front of everyone else, and at the corner of his eye, Hyunjin sees Seungmin watching him cautiously, half-hidden behind Woojin.

Hyunjin sits resolutely at the end of the table in the corner after it’s over, nursing a bruise and the two demerit points slapped onto his conduct for fighting in class. The only consolation he gets, if he can even call it one, is that Donghyuck’s been sent out for a full day of solitary confinement for using his Enhancement.

He broods over his own exercise book, emotions boiling within him, wishing Yeji were here so they could complain and whisper together about their dreams of breaking out of here one day, running away from all the orderlies and the other kids and the yucky eggplant-y food. He’s angrily doodling foxes on the lined paper by the time a certain glasses-clad boy inches over, quietly perching on the chair next to him.

"Thanks for getting my glasses back," he says in barely over a whisper, not meeting Hyunjin's eyes.

On any other day, Hyunjin would've mumbled out a _whatever_ , still smarting from the fight and the scolding. But his mouth moves on its own, and he croaks out an "it's okay".

Seungmin drums his fingers silently against the tabletop, an awfully grown-up habit for someone so tiny. He whispers again, a little louder this time. "We can continue Math if you want."

Hyunjin stares for a moment. He wants to get out of this lesson, wants to get out of this place, wants to eat chocolate bread and pet a dog. He does _not_ want to continue Math.

"Okay," his mouth says traitorously, and Seungmin gives him a small little smile for the tiniest of a second. 

And then Hyunjin thinks, as he sits out the rest of the class, listening to the other boy explain slowly and steadily about pizzas, that maybe, if it’s with Seungmin, Math isn’t so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading the beginning of the pairing that made me first start writing surrender!!
> 
> useless funfax time!! i actually was a bit iffy about writing this fic at all, i wasn't confident that i'd be able to write another fic using this same universe i created for another fandom. but then!!! i thought about seungjin and this dynamic,,, and then literally everything else sort of fell into place from there!!! i was in a srs dilemma about who to give the main pairing role to (changlix won by merit of the 3racha superheroes aesthetic being especially aesthetic) and i struggled with minsung and woochan too, but i was always really sure about seungjin hehe ;u;
> 
> so this one's just a short one, right now i'm finishing up the woojin/chan spinoff so that should,,, be out,,, sometime maybe?? i was super nervous about posting something this short uhu T_T life is killing me slowly so i decided to speed up the process by spending tonight finishing this and the woochan up, and i am working on the next chapters of actus reus and surrender too!!
> 
> do let me know what you think in the comments!! they give me strength to write and live :"") please eat well and stay healthy guys!! thank you for reading ;u; 
> 
> p.s. let's be moots!! on twt @symmetrophobic <3


End file.
